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Three Accounts of March:

New York Daily News
Vanessa Foster
Gender Advocacy Network


A Peace March Turns Violent

Cops nab 120 in protest of anti-gay crimes

By HENRI E. CAUVIN, BILL EGBERT and BILL HUTCHINSON
NY Daily News Staff Writers


Thousands of protesters held a surprise march down Fifth Ave. last night to condemn the slaying of a gay Wyoming college student — clashing with cops and causing traffic chaos at the height of rush hour.

The 6 p.m. event outside The Plaza hotel drew more than 4,000 demonstrators, who caught police off-guard when they decided to take to the streets.

The unexpectedly large demonstration stretched into more than three hours of chaos. Mayor Giuliani said up to 120 people were arrested.

An unknown number of protesters were injured and at least one cop suffered a hand injury, police said.

"We did not expect them to go into the streets," said First Deputy Commissioner Patrick Kelleher. "And once they started to disrupt traffic and endanger the safety of others, we were forced to make arrests."

Organizers billed the event as a chance to express "public outrage over the murder of Matthew Shepard," the 21-year-old University of Wyoming student slain earlier this month.

They held up photographs of the slain man and shouted "Stop the hate!" as many of their cohorts were put in plastic handcuffs and carted off in city buses.

Cops in riot gear quickly arrested 40 people, mostly organizers who had advertised the rally by word of mouth or the Internet but did not get city permits.

Demonstration leaders said they did not tell cops because they did not want to be rebuffed. "We couldn't take that," said organizer Sara Pursley, 29.

Police, however, said they learned of the event in advance through flyers organizers had posted throughout the city. But cops admitted they were anticipating only a few hundred demonstrators.

Last night, Giuliani said from New Hampshire that while the protest was for a "very worthy cause," organizers were wrong for going behind the city's back.

"This appears to have been a spontaneous march, and it appears to be one we would have granted a permit for," Giuliani said. "They would have been granted a permit if they had given the police a day or two notice."

The demonstration came nearly four months after cops were caught by surprise by a protest by 40,000 construction workers, who paralyzed midtown and clashed with cops.

After most of the leaders of yesterday's march were quickly taken away in handcuffs, protesters pounding drums and tambourines and carrying vigil candles kept marching down Fifth Ave.

Several protesters carried a brown coffin on their shoulders, and many demanded the passage of a hate-crimes bill in New York. There has been a spate of anti-gay violence in the city, particularly in Greenwich Village, in recent weeks.

Cops feared the demonstration would reach the New York Hilton, where First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton was speaking. But protesters didn't go to the heavily guarded hotel, at Sixth Ave. and 53rd St.

As NYPD brass called in reinforcements from every precinct in the city, thousands of people spilled onto Fifth Ave., blocking traffic and chanting "Whose streets? Our streets!"

At 43rd St., helmeted cops stood by as protesters stopped for a 15-minute vigil. But just south of 34th St., cops in riot shields lined up shoulder to shoulder in the street.

Protesters shouted "Shame!" at the officers, and some tried to push through, but they were forced back by cops thrusting out their nightsticks.

The demonstrators moved in unison downtown, where they were challenged by police on horseback. Demonstrators screamed in terror, and some of the horses began to trample into the crowd.

Protesters began hurling rocks and bottles at the cops, hitting at least one officer in the helmet and striking several horses. Some demonstrators accused cops of unnecessarily using pepper spray.

Many protesters stood on cars and chanted at the officers, "Racist, sexist, anti-gay, NYPD go away!"

Blood ran down the forehead of protester Peter Notman, 38, who paid the price for kneeling in front of a charging horse.

"I was assaulted by New York's Finest," Notman said.

Another protester, Ruth Finkelstein, screamed in pain as emergency workers treated her leg. "I was trampled by a horse," she said. "I'm furious that we don't have the right to assembly in our own city."

About four hours after the protest began, police had herded hundreds of protesters into Madison Square Park.

With Martin Mbugua, Austin Fenner, Alice McQuillan, Lisa Rein, Marty Rosen and Paul H.B. Shin.

Other Accounts:

Stonewall II:
Police Turn Violent
As 5,000 Take to Streets


Sylvia Rivera Arrested Once Again
By Vanessa Edwards Foster

NEW YORK, NY "It was Stonewall Two!" said one witness describing police response to the memorial march and vigil held to remember Matthew Shepard. Writer Randolfe Wicker, of New York’s GayToday, reported seeing “police brutality up close, beatings, clubbings, arm-twistings as well as numerous arrests.

The marchers had gathered to protest recent hate crimes and the violent homophobic moods preached by hate-group-fundamentalist "Christians" such as Rev. Fred Phelps' God Hates Fags. However, the City of New York refused the vigil holders a parade permit. Police initially expected no more than 200 marchers, but were quickly overwhelmed as a giant crowd estimated at between 4,000 and 5,000 surged down Fifth Avenue after gathering in front of the Plaza Hotel in midtown Manhattan. Their original plan had been to march down 5th Avenue from 59th to 25th Street to conduct the candlelight vigil at Madison Square Park, but that plan went awry.

The crowd, carrying candles and signs saying "Matthew Shepard: Another Death Caused by Homophobia!" began marching down 5th Avenue. As the crowd grew, the police became alarmed. At one point, they apparently warned the marchers to stay out of the street as they marched. Silvia Rivera, a Stonewall Era veteran, was marching with a crowd that then began chanting "The Streets Belong to the People!" As vast numbers of lesbians and gays overstepped the sidewalks, a phalanx of law officers set upon them.

Ms. Rivera, kicked by police, was among the first of those arrested. Anti-Violence Project members handed out silver whistles which were later blown loudly by protestors to thwart police when they tried to communicate alarm on walkie-talkies. The marchers, containing themselves to the sidewalk, continued on. The police were overwhelmed by the sheer numbers, but decided to take control. At one point the crowd was directed west toward 6th Avenue. Police attempted to blockade the crowd from 6th Avenue, but crowds managed to avoid the barricades by detouring through a construction site. Traffic on the Avenue of the Americas (6th) was brought to a complete standstill.

After police began heavy-handedly arresting some of the marchers, march organizers directed the crowd back toward 5th Avenue again. Police had decided to take a stand again and were lined up at 42nd and 5th Avenue, so organizers linked arms again and directed the masses to return west yet again at 43rd Street.

"That's when it got ugly," Wicker said. "All exits were closed. Five thousand people were trapped on 43rd near 6th Avenues...[organizers] sat down holding hands. That's when police on horseback marched into the crowd clubbing and trampling and arresting people. We were pinned like cattle for about 45 minutes."

At this point the marchers were divided, but approximately 80% went back to 5th Avenue and continued downtown stopping all mid-town traffic. At about 8:30 that evening, the crowd arrived at the site of the candlelight vigil – Madison Square Park – even without a speaker system, and having most of their scheduled speakers arrested. Some of the notable arrests included Ms. Rivera (one of the instigators at Stonewall); Leslie Feinberg, author of Stone Butch Blues; and lesbian poet and activist Minnie Bruce Pratt.

News coverage by the media was mixed, with the CBS affiliate slanting the story towards the police version and the NBC and FOX channels spotlighting the misbehavior of the boys in blue. While this was certainly not a fitting tribute to the memory of Matthew Shepard, it’s a sad reminder of how far we all have yet to go.


Eyewitness: They Were Brutal

From Gender Advocacy Internet News (GAIN):

At approximately 7:30 this evening I received a call from one of my skater friends named Snake who had just seen Sylvia Rivera beaten with clubs, kicked, and dragged to a police vehicle on her face for kneeling with representatives of the Lesbian and Gay Anti-Violence project on Fifth Ave at approximately 59th St. while other cops shredded her Stonewall flag. I heard the police beat and arrest Snake as he was speaking to me from a pay telephone near the site of this act of extreme police brutality.

Locally known Puerto Rican activist Marisella Guzman, who has given me an exclusive taped eyewitness account not only witnessed the arrest but has taken photographs which will be developed and available for the press within the next few hours. According to Ms. Guzman, with corroborating eyewitness testimony from Stonewall Veteran and Gay Activist Alliance founder Randy Wicker, after this arrest the crowd, by now 6000 strong and growing proceeded down Fifth Avenue towards Times Square, switching at one point to Sixth Ave. temporarily blocking both Avenues.

As the crowd grew to an estimated 9000 people half again that number of cops arrived with buses, scooters, horses and a large squad in full riot gear (helmets, clubs, etc) charged the crowd, indiscriminately clubbing people including Maura Baily of the Anti-Violence Project. Ms Guzman and Mr. Wicker reported that Leslie Feinberg and Minnie Bruce Pratt were involved in the melee, and it was later confirmed by Workers World reporter Kristiana T'omas that Leslie Feinberg was arrested. Sylvia Rivera also was arrested, beaten and is to be arraigned at 1 Police Plaza at 10am tomorrow morning (Tuesday). People who were attempting to comply with police orders to disperse were still being arrested. Randy Wicker says that this is the worst violence he has seen in any demonstration since Stonewall itself.

As an editorial comment, the AVP was one of the sponsors of this March in full co-operation with its director, New York City Council Democratic candidate Christine Quinn. Council member and State Senate candidate publicly supported this march. The unspeakable violence that occurs tonight represents nothing less than Mayor Giuliani, a Republican allowing his notoriously violent, racist and homophobic police department to assault what was essentially a peaceful political funeral, intended to promote support for an anti-hates crime bill and led by mainstream Lesbian and Gay Democrats. There is only one applicable word for this kind of behaviour. This is Fascism, pure and simple.

Chelsea Elisabeth Goodwin co-chair Metropolitan Gender Network

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